Omagh 20 years on: 'It was like a revolving door of casualties'
Sister Thelma Graham recalls the hospital's emergency operation
Last updated 15th Aug 2018
A nurse who worked in the Tyrone County Hospital on the day of the Omagh bomb said the amount of casualties coming in were relentless.
Sister Thelma Graham was tasked with assisting in the surgical wards as the news of the atrocity broke.
Over two hundred people suffered horrific, life changing injuries in the Real IRA attack.
She had been in the middle of changing a dressing when she heard the explosion and immediately the hospital’s contingency plan was actioned.
Thelma said nothing could prepare her for what was about to unfold:
“The ambulance had arrived within that short time and I remember one ambulance man said to me ‘Thelma it is massive, there’s a massive amount of injuries there, this is only the start of it.
“It was mammoth, it was just constant, it was like a revolving door.
“Patients were going in and out and in and out and in and out, it was just constant.
“Patients were being transferred to Enniskillen, patients were being transferred to Belfast, the helicopter was brought into function then, bleeding was uncontrollable, there was blood transfusions going, it was just mammoth.”
“Come that time, there was a huge amount of people but I just stayed on the ward all that time and you never got a break, you didn’t even look for a break or want a break,” she added.
As the casualties began to stream in and medical staff worked tirelessly, Thelma recalled one stark image that she remembers vividly:
“There was one wee boy came in and they lifted back a sheet and it was literally just as if his foot was just completely amputated.
“And I remember Mr Pinto, he said look he needs this, he needs that but he was the one boy that I remember…he was…probably in shock.
“It was horrendous, you think my word did that actually happen, sometimes it’s so surreal.
“That one wee boy literally sticks out in my mind out of all the patients. You look at the footage and all those people standing in the middle of that and you think what did they see? What did they see compared to what I seen?”
Chaotic scenes followed after the blast that killed 29 people as the small, cottage hospital tried to deal with the unrelenting stream of wounded civilians.
Thelma said despite the best efforts of staff one woman could not be saved:
“I did see Geraldine McCrystal.
“It was really sad for her because she was on the ward, they’d actually tried to take her to theatre but her injuries were that…so severe and she was helicoptered out and she subsequently died.
“I remember her, she worked in Wattersons and she was a lovely person.
“You thought of all the people that were killed, I knew the majority of them.
“Particularly the girl that worked in Wattersons there were two staff members that worked in Wattersons, there was a neighbour her daughter was killed.”
The hospital has since been praised for its quick and efficient response to the atrocity and some medical staff received prestigious awards in recognition of their life saving actions.
Consultant surgeon Dr Dominic Pinto who co-ordinated the crisis response in A & E was awarded an OBE for his services to the profession.
Thelma said she takes great pride in being part of the team that worked tirelessly on the injured that day, despite the horrors:
“You just thought of all those people, all those people that were injured, you thought of the work that was done, how proud you were as a small hospital that we could do all that.
“I’ve worked in surgery nearly all my life so I was exposed to a lot of big injuries or any trauma but I was never exposed to anything like that.”
While staff battled to attend to the most seriously injured, Thelma said in her long nursing career she has never experienced anything like it.
The Sister told us morphine was being administered like paracetamol to try and control patients’ pain:
“It’s embedded in us, giving out controlled drugs, two nurses check controlled drugs.
“The controlled drugs cupboard was open, the pharmacist was there, you were giving out controlled drugs because patients were screaming in pain, literally.
“I mean that wee boy was given morphine, it was just morphine, morphine, morphine.
“That never happens, if a controlled drug went missing there’s a whole incident about it, it’s a serious adverse incident but on that day Mr Pinto would say give him morphine 10 and morphine is your strongest opioid.
“All the patients were needing that and you need that for that type of pain.”
Thelma will be among those who will pause to remember the twentieth anniversary of the bombing and she says she will take time to reflect:
“You just worked your way through it, of course you were emotional but you had to maintain your professionalism, you were so focused on what you were doing, you were so focused on treating the patients.
“Looking back, I just think how can human do that to human…there’s been so many atrocities in our world."